TWO TOWNS OF JASPER   is a feature-length documentary about the 1998 racially motivated murder of James Byrd Jr. in Jasper, Texas. Slated for broadcast on the award winning PBS non-fiction series P.O.V. in 2003, the film was funded by the Independent Television Service, The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, The National Black Programming Consortium, The Wellspring Foundation and the Richard H. Driehaus Production.

On June 7, 1998, a sleepy east Texas town awoke to the news of a horrifying crime. Early that Sunday morning, James Byrd Jr., an African-American, was viciously beaten, chained to the back of a pick-up truck, and dragged for three miles until his body was torn apart. Three white men, John William King, Lawrence Russell Brewer, and Shawn Berry - all with ties to the Arayan Nation - were arrested and charged with kidnapping and murder.

The film is a collaborative effort between a black and a white filmmaker, with the producers using segregated crews to document the town of Jasper over the course of the trials of the three men charged with dragging Mr. Byrd to his death.

Many films have been made about the racial divide in America, but none to the producers' knowledge have used segregated crews as a lens on the subject. TWO TOWNS OF JASPER will resonate with anyone concerned with the divisions that separate one person from another, whether that division is based on race, nationality, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, or religion.